19th century american history
20th century american history
A01=Eric H. Monkkonen
Author_Eric H. Monkkonen
beatings
case studies
Category=JBFK
Category=JBSD
Category=JHB
Category=JKV
Category=NHK
criminology
cultural studies
death
death in america
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
excessive violence
gender and murder
high violence
international context
investigation
killing
killing another human being
murder
murder and mayhem
murder in america
murderers
new york city
poverty
race and ethnicity
racial discrimination
social studies
sociology
sociology of urban areas
stabbings
true accounts
united states of america
urban homicide
victims
Product details
- ISBN 9780520221888
- Weight: 590g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 04 Jan 2001
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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"Murder in New York City" dramatically expands what we know about urban homicide, and challenges some of the things we think we know. Eric Monkkonen's unprecedented investigation covers two centuries of murder in America's biggest city, combining newly assembled statistical evidence with many other documentary sources to tease out the story behind the figures. As we generally believe, the last part of the twentieth century was unusually violent, but there have been other high-violence eras as well: the late 1920s and the mid-nineteenth century, the latter because the absence of high-quality weapons and ammunition makes that era's stabbings and beatings seem almost more vicious. Monkkonen's long view allows us to look back to a time when guns were rarer, when poverty was more widespread, and when racial discrimination was more intense, and to ask what difference these things made. With many vivid case studies for illustration, he examines the crucial factors in killing through the years: the weapons of choice, the sex and age of offenders and victims, the circumstances and settings in which homicide tends to occur, and the race and ethnicity of murderers and their victims.
In a final chapter, Monkkonen looks to the international context and shows that New York - and, by extension, the United States - has had consistently higher violence levels than London and Liverpool. No single factor, he says, shapes this excessive violence, but exploring the variables of age, ethnicity, weapons, and demography over the long term can lead to hope of changing old patterns.
Eric H. Monkkonen is Professor of History and Policy Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Author of The Local State (1995) and America Becomes Urban (California, 1988), he is also editor of the eleven-volume Crime and Justice in American History (1991).
